


The Best Way Out

by Butterfly



Series: Scenes from a Resurrection Story [1]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hopeful Ending, Quentin Coldwater/Alice Quinn (minor/mentioned), Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh (minor/mentioned), Quentin Coldwater/Margo Hanson (minor/mentioned), the MCD is canonical not something i put in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 19:26:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18610954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterfly/pseuds/Butterfly
Summary: Quentin Coldwater walks through a door.





	The Best Way Out

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, boy. This fic has major content warnings for dealing head-on with suicidal ideation and the disordered thinking associated with depression and suicide, such as I feel we were presented with in the finale of The Magicians.

Quentin tightened his fingers around the metrocard, didn't let himself look at Penny again, and walked through the archway into _where he needed to be_.

Darkness.

He blinked and turned around, stumbling a little over his own feet, but the archway was gone. No light, no parking garage.

No Penny.

He laughed.

He couldn't quite help it.

The darkness swallowed the sound as if it had never existed.

“Penny?” His voice didn't echo into the emptiness – he _could_ hear himself, but it was strange and airless. The card dropped out of his fingers...

..his fingers, his _hands_. Quentin clasped his hands together and brought them up to his face and, yes, he could see them, as clearly as if he were standing in the bright morning light at Brakebills. He looked down and he could see himself, in the clothes he had been wearing when he died, the metrocard resting lightly on the black nothingness next to his shoes.

“Is anyone else here?” He made the sound as loud as he could, his chest aching with the effort, but it came out just the same as before, like he was mumbling to himself under his breath. It wouldn't carry any further than his own ears. Quentin reached out desperately, to see if the archway was still there and maybe he just couldn't _see_ it.

Nothing.

Nothing.

 _Nothing_.

The laugh came again, but half-hysterical now, half-way to a sob.

Please, _no_. Please not this. Please _anything_ except only himself, for the rest of forever.

“My dear boy, I never was very good with you when you were upset. Please _do_ pull yourself together, if you can manage it.”

Quentin's panic short-circuited as he looked over at the sound of that familiar, clipped voice. It was Jane Chatwin... Jane the way he'd seen her in his dreams, the way he'd always imagined her when reading the books. “I- I don't...” The look on her face, impatient and yet fond almost despite herself, was so familiar that he realized- “You're not really her, are you?”

“What do you think?”

“I think Jane Chatwin fucked me over harder than anyone else in my entire fucking life,” Quentin said, raising his chin and looking her straight in the eyes. She didn't flinch, didn't react. She wasn't real, then. “You're my 'anything but that', huh?”

She shrugged with one shoulder, calm and in control. He liked... it was better to think of her this way than as older Jane, as Eliza. When he and Julia had played at Fillory, Q had always been Martin but he'd always – always, _always_ – wanted to be Jane. “You've done this before, Quentin.”

“The Scarlotti web, back when I'd only been at Brakebills a few months,” he said. “But the you there... it was the real you, I think. Maybe. Was it?”

“I'm not sure how _I'm_ supposed to know that answer to that question,” she said. “Clear your mind, Quentin. _Think._ Don't stay-”

“-on the garden path, I know,” Quentin said. “I don't... am I supposed to create my own afterlife? That seems kinda bullshit. I'm dead and I still have to do all the fucking work myself? How- how can- and if I created you, why didn't I create someone I like _better_ to be here with me?”

“That's hurtful,” Jane said, but she didn't sound hurt. “You spent more time thinking about me in your short life than you did any of the real people you knew, after all.”

“Bullshit,” Quentin said. “When I was younger, maybe. Not for a long time.”

“Are you sure that's true?” She walked around him and he pivoted to keep her from being at his back. “I mean, how much do you really think about the people you say you love? You left them all alone to grieve over you.”

“They were already starting to move on,” he said, voice thick. “They'll... they'll be fine. Julia has... she- she's strong. Alice is- Alice will- she'll be fine. Margo has... has Eliot. And Eliot- El...” When he blinked, he saw the bonfire again, and that fucking peach burning up. That _peach_ and Q had barely been able to even see it through the smoke in his eyes. “El's lost people before,” he said, finally. “He has Margo. They'll- they'll...”

“Best to say the words quickly,” Jane advised. “It'll hurt less that way.”

Quentin shook his head – not so much because her words were wrong, but more because... well. Maybe because they were right. He looked at her steadily. He'd asked Penny this but Penny, for all his mind-reading, had never known Quentin as much as he'd believed that he had.

“Did I die because I wanted to save my friends or because I was too tired to keep fighting?”

“If it _was_ because you were too tired, is that such a bad thing?” Jane asked, her voice softening.

Quentin gestured wildly at the big ugly nothingness surrounding them. “Look around, Jane! I'm in a black fucking void, talking to a figment of my imagination. Things have been better!”

“But they've also been worse, haven't they? You can't hurt anyone here. You can't disappoint them. You can't break anything.”

For a long moment, he stood there, staring past Jane and into the endless blackness. Then, quietly, he said, “I can't mend anything, either.”

“True enough. If anything was broken by your death, there's nothing you can do about it now,” Jane agreed. Quentin closed his eyes tightly, willing himself not to start crying. Here in this place, if he started, he might cry for the rest of forever. She continued, her voice relentless, “But you were right, before. None of them need you. They'll mourn for a bit, but they'll move on. And they'll be able to move a bit easier, a bit more lightness to their steps, won't they, without Quentin Coldwater dragging them down? Were you ever anything more to them than a burden?”

_You were the best thing that ever happened to me._

Alice had- she'd said that. But. But that had been before-Alice. Before he'd cheated on her, before he'd disappointed her, before he brought her back to a life she hadn't wanted. He'd had a chance to be someone important to her and he'd fucked it up. Alice could... Alice could be her own best thing. He'd only ever made things worse for her.

“If anything, you should have done it sooner,” Jane said. She was circling around him again, her voice gentle and soft and soothing. “Really, think of how much trouble you would have saved everyone if you'd just been brave in the first place, swallowed Ember's seed yourself instead fobbing it off to Alice, and ended it all back then, taking the Beast with you. Everyone could have let you go and moved on with their lives, instead of you continuing to demand their attention.”

Quentin's mouth twisted slightly. But that hadn't been- that hadn't been  _why_ he'd-

“Go back further than that – if you'd only taken care of things the first time you thought about it, maybe I would have had a better canvas to work with when it came to saving Fillory and stopping the Beast. Someone who didn't need forty tries to get it right.” There was a strange echo in Jane's voice now. “Think of how much pain you would have saved everyone, if you'd just drummed up the courage to-”

“Shut _up_.” It wasn't a yell or a scream, it was only the barest of whispers, but Jane shut up anyway. Quentin pried his eyes open. She was standing there, and the concern on her face was so careful, so... so fake. It's not Jane, he reminded himself. None of this is Jane.

This was all just him, talking to himself.

And if this was all just him then... then...

He leaned down and picked up the metrocard. It was nothing special, but it was still here. That had to mean something.

“What do I know about the afterlife?” Quentin asked himself. He bit his lip and glanced around at the nothing. Jane was gone, like she'd never been there in the first place. “I know it has... shitty bureaucracy and people get stuck in bowling alleys for years so... so why would I get jumped to the head of the line, anyway? There's nothing so fucking special about Quentin Coldwater. I should have needed to take a number, wait my turn like everyone else. Unless... someone didn't want me to have any time to think things over for myself?”

“The idea has merit. You  _ are _ a known trouble-maker.”

Q blinked – it was before-Alice, hair tucked back behind her ears, eyes shining with curiosity and a hint of interest. “You think?”

“ _You_ think, dummy,” she said, with that impatient half-smile. “So, let's break it down together. The afterlife. We know you don't have to be stuck here. The Library in the Underworld is connected to the Neitherlands Library through the dragon book drop.”

“That's for... books and, I don't know, maybe people who haven't moved on if they can sneak through. I took the card, I walked through the doorway. Maybe I'm stuck here.” He gave Alice an apologetic look. “I kinda hope I'm not stuck here.”

“It is a little boring,” she said. “I mean, you couldn't try for a better backdrop? Maybe some stars. Pretty lights.”

“I've never been that creative,” he said. Alice snorted, rolling her eyes. “What?”

“Maybe I'm just tired of hearing you put yourself down,” she suggested. “Self-deprecating jokes are  _ not _ that attractive. Self-love is much better than self-pity.”

“Okay, that sounds more like a memory of a self-help book than it sounds like Alice Quinn,” Q said, but he couldn't help from smiling a little. She shrugged, unrepentant.

“How well do you really know me anyway? You've never been able to predict what I'd do or how I'd react.”

“Fair point,” Q admitted. “I guess... I guess I get stuck in my own head sometimes. Or I did.”

“The more things change...”

“Right. So, what gets you stuck in the underworld. Dying, sure, but dying isn't...” Q let out an explosive breath, thinking, thinking, _thinking_. “Penny offered me a drink, when I got here.”

“You didn't drink it.”

“It was too hot; he told me to wait.” Q tapped the metrocard against his lips. “I never got around to it, either. In myths about the underworld or about fey realms, it's eating or drinking that traps you there. Would Penny know that?”

“Would Penny care?”

“He seemed nicer,” Quentin said, thoughtfully. “But also... strange? He's definitely changed.”

“You think he was trying to give you a loophole?”

“I think... I think this whole reeks. Rushing me through to Secrets Taken to the Grave and I... I don't even think told him any?” Quentin wrinkled his nose. “Does being unsure about whether or not I meant to kill myself really count as a secret?”

“It's not a secret. I knew.” But that young, wavering voice wasn't... Q looked over and Alice was gone. Instead, he saw Julia, but not- not now-Julia. It was a tiny slip of a Julia, like the one he'd last seen as a shade. Her hands were covered in pastel chalk and her face had streaks of color smeared all over. From when they drew the Fillory map on the bottom of the table? That couldn't be right; they hadn't used chalk for that.

He crouched down so that he could talk to her more comfortably. “Hey, Jules.”

“I don't like this place,” she said. “If we're going to imagine up a world, why don't we go to Fillory?”

“Fillory was an awfully big disappointment,” Quentin said, reaching out and cupping the back of Julia's head, then pulling her into a tight hug. “God. Everything has been such a fucking disappointment.”

“Everything?” Her voice was so small. “Wasn't any of it good, Q?”

“For a little while, sure,” he said. “But we never got to keep any of the good things. Not for long.”

She pulled away and looked at him with such a... he'd seen Julia give him that look hundreds of times over the years. Searching, hoping for a light, and so so sad when she saw how lost he was. He'd lashed out at her once and called it pity, but that had never... never been quite right. “Does losing something mean it was never worth having in the first place?”

“I don't know,” he said, a rush of shame washing over him when his voice broke. “Fuck, Jules. I don't know. I've just been so tired. More tired than I've ever been in my life.”

“You don't have to carry it all alone,” she said, voice getting stronger with each word. “I can help, I promise. You're the best friend I'll ever have, no matter what. I'm here for you, Q. Let me help.”

Those words... those words, in  _ Julia's voice _ , and he would never- he would never... 

Q wrapped himself around Julia, buried his face in her hair, and gave in to the tears. It felt real, it felt so  _ fucking _ real, but it wasn't and it would never be again, and it wasn't fair, he'd wanted. He  _ wanted _ -

“Life ain't fair.”

Quentin kept his face pressed against Julia's hair, because he couldn't – oh, he couldn't look at that face. Not now, not when it would never ever really be Eliot again. So he sobbed in half a breath, tightened his arms around Julia's shoulders. It didn't help – he could still feel another presence, walking slowly around them.

He felt a soft touch on the top of his head, light as a kiss, and then the sense of another presence faded away again. He shuffled back from Julia, reaching up and wiping the tears from his face. She was still so solemn, so earnest. “It's okay, Jules. You don't need to worry about me anymore. I'm at.. I'm at peace. I  _ am _ at peace.”

“She might be young, but she's not stupid,” Margo drawled as she draped herself over Quentin's shoulder from behind. “You just spent a good half an hour soaking her hair. That's not what peace looks like, Coldwater. Just admit it. This sucks. Everything about this sucks.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, too raw to argue anymore. “You're right.”

“So, what the fuck are we gonna do to fix it?” Margo pressed her chin down against his shoulder, and he could feel her warm against his back and he remembered- he shook his head, shoving it away. “Because that  _ is _ gonna be the next step, right? When things get screwed, we fix them.”

“Usually that ends up making everything worse,” Q said, eyes closing again as he soaked in the strength of her touch. This wasn't how Margo was with him, this was how she was with- but it felt nice. “I don't- if me finding my way back ends up hurting them, how can I do it?”

“You really think we wouldn't be willing to take that risk? If everything goes balls-up, we'll deal with it, like we always do.” Her voice softened, the way he'd only heard it be a handful of times. “Look, do you believe we love you?”

Quentin hesitated, wrapping his fingers around Margo's wrist and swallowing heavily. “Yeah. I do.”

“Then you know that imaginary fucker was lying earlier,” Margo said, with all her radiant rage-powered certainty. “Losing you isn't gonna make anything better. You aren't a fucking  _ burden _ to the people you love. So get your shit together, get out of this hellhole, and come back to us, okay?”

“Okay,” he whispered and it echoed in the void.

It _echoed_.

He looked around wildly – Margo was gone, but the void was... there was the faintest outline of the archway that he'd come through, the dimmest of lights spilling through. He clutched at the metrocard again, got up on his feet.

Walked back through the archway, blinking as his eyes readjusted.

He didn't have a plan, but that was fine. 

He had a destination and he had people waiting for him.

It was enough to start on.

He was going home.

**Author's Note:**

> In some senses, the conversations that Q has with the various people he imagines echo the own arguments I've had with myself when I've been in the middle of bad depressive periods. I was very disappointed with the choices that The Magicians made with Q's storyline and this is essentially me processing my reaction to the finale in fictional format.
> 
> The title is part of a poem by Robert Frost: "A Servant to Servants". The poem itself is too long to quote in full, but here is that line in more context:
> 
> He says the best way out is always through.  
> And I agree to that, or in so far  
> As that I can see no way out but through—  
> Leastways for me—and then they’ll be convinced.


End file.
